Is Poker Legal in Haryana? The 2026 Guide for Players and Clubs
Live poker now has a conditional legal route in Haryana. This guide explains the notification, club rules, court history, GST and the limits players should know.
Rishi Published 6 October 2026 13 min read
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The short answer
Yes, live poker is legal in Haryana, but only under strict conditions. On 10 September 2026, the Haryana Government notified poker and rummy as "games of skill" under the Haryana Prevention of Public Gambling Act, 2025. That takes physical poker out of the gambling ban, but only when it's played in a club that follows every condition in the Home Department's guidelines.
Three points sum it up:
Live poker in a compliant, registered club: legal.
Rake or a cut of the pot: no official notification, guideline or court order we have located says whether a live club may charge rake or commission. Treat it as unsettled.
Online real-money poker: banned across India since 1 May 2026, and a state notification can't change that.
The rest of this guide explains how Haryana got here, what the Punjab & Haryana High Court said, and exactly what players and clubs can and can't do.
The law: Haryana Prevention of Public Gambling Act, 2025
The Act treats "gambling" as both betting and gaming. It separates two kinds of games:
Game of chance: the result depends mainly on luck.
Game of skill: the result depends mainly on the player's knowledge, training or experience.
The Act also gives the state government the power to notify a game as a game of skill. Games of skill are exempt from the Act's penalties. That notification power is the key to everything that happened in 2026.
Penalties under the Act
Offence
First offence
Repeat offence
Owning, managing or financing a gambling house
3–5 years' jail + fine up to ₹1 lakh
5–7 years' jail + ₹2–5 lakh fine
Playing in or being found in a gambling house
Up to 1 year's jail or ₹10,000 fine
1–3 years' jail + at least ₹10,000 fine
Match-fixing or spot-fixing
3–5 years' jail + at least ₹5 lakh fine
5–7 years' jail + at least ₹7 lakh fine
Source note: The penalty figures in the table are reported in Taxscan’s summary of the Act. Operators should confirm the current bare Act and obtain legal advice before relying on them.
These penalties explain why compliance matters so much. A club that falls outside the skill-game exemption isn't facing a regulatory fine. It is running a gambling house.
Haryana’s 2026 notification and reported operating guidelines created a conditional route for live poker clubs.
The two September 2026 developments
Two documents, issued five days apart, created a legal path for poker rooms in Haryana.
1. The notification of 10 September 2026: poker and rummy are games of skill
On 10 September 2026, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Sudhir Rajpal issued a notification under Section 2 of the 2025 Act. It declared poker and rummy to be games of skill, as reported by The Tribune.
The state's position rests on a long line of court decisions:
1968: In State of Andhra Pradesh v. K. Satyanarayana (AIR 1968 SC 825), the Supreme Court held that rummy is "mainly and preponderantly a game of skill".
2023: An IIT Delhi study found that success in poker and rummy depends on cognitive skill, and that players get better with practice.
2024: The Allahabad High Court held both poker and rummy to be games of skill.
2. The Home Department guidelines of 15 September 2026: the conditions
Five days later, the Home Department issued operating guidelines. They set the conditions a club must meet for the notification to protect it. As summarised by StartupTalky, a club must:
Register with the District Magistrate.
Admit members only.
Run full KYC on every member using Aadhaar and PAN.
Keep out anyone under 18.
Install CCTV and keep 15 days of footage available to the police.
Accept periodic police visits.
Comply with GST and income tax.
Apply responsible-gaming limits on deposits and transactions.
The most important point is this: miss any one condition and the exemption stops protecting you. The Act's full penalties then apply again.
Verification note: The guideline details above come from press reports. Before acting on them, get the original notification and guidelines from the Deputy Commissioner's office or through an RTI application.
What the Punjab & Haryana High Court said
The High Court did not legalise poker. It did push the state to decide, and it protected clubs from police action without due process while the state made up its mind.
The court asked the petitioners' counsel whether Haryana had ever notified poker and rummy as games of skill under the Act. Counsel said he wasn't aware of any such notification.
The state's own record confirmed it. A letter dated 13 October 2025 from the Additional Chief Secretary to the Commissioner of Police, Gurugram, said the government had not issued any notification exempting any game as a game of skill. Police proposals on classifying games were still pending.
What the court ordered
No coercive action against the petitioners without proper notice and due process.
The state had to pass appropriate orders within six weeks of the replies being filed.
Earlier orders against the petitioners stayed suspended until the state's fresh decision.
The petitioners could still argue that their activities fall outside the gambling law.
Why it matters
The March order turned a grey area into a deadline. The state could no longer leave poker undecided. Its answer came in September 2026, when it used its Section 2 power and notified poker and rummy as games of skill.
Date
What happened
15 Sep 2026
Home Department issues operating guidelines for clubs
10 Sep 2026
Haryana notifies poker and rummy as games of skill
27 May 2026
Supreme Court gives a national GST ruling on organised online gaming (see Tax section)
1 May 2026
National ban on online money gaming takes effect
17 Aug 2026
Punjab & Haryana High Court directs that specified petitioners be permitted to run physical/offline poker and rummy, subject to KYC, traceability, CCTV and authority-access conditions (judgment)
23 Mar 2026
High Court orders the state to decide; no coercive action without due process
13 Oct 2025
State letter confirms no game has been notified as skill
21 May 2025
Haryana Prevention of Public Gambling Act, 2025 comes into force
A compliant club must separate room access and hospitality charges from the money staked by players.
What you CAN do in Haryana
If you're a player
Play live poker or rummy for real money at a club that is registered with the District Magistrate and follows the guidelines.
Become a member of a club once you're 18 or older and you complete KYC with your Aadhaar and PAN.
Play cash games and tournaments at a compliant club. The club's charges go towards running the room, not a share of the pot.
Play a private game at home with friends, as long as nobody runs it as a business. The Act's penalties are aimed at gambling houses and public gambling, but the notification doesn't expressly cover home games, so keep stakes social and never charge a hosting fee.
Keep your winnings, after tax. Income tax applies to winnings, and the paying party may deduct TDS (see the Tax section).
If you run a club
A club can earn money the way a snooker hall or golf club does, by selling access rather than taking a share of the bets:
Seat or table fees, such as an hourly rate per seat.
Membership fees, whether monthly, annual or tiered.
Tournament entry fees, kept flat and separate from the prize pool. See the caution under "What you cannot do".
Food, beverages, events and hospitality.
To stay protected, a club also has to:
Register with the DM before it opens.
Keep KYC records, with an age check, for every member.
Run CCTV and keep 15 days of footage ready for the police.
Keep a log of every police visit and inspection.
Charge GST on its own fees and file returns on time.
Set and enforce limits on each member's deposits and transactions.
The principle behind this goes back to 1968, when the Supreme Court said a fee for using the room is like a fee for billiards or tennis, and does not by itself make a club a gambling house. A cut of the stakes is a different matter.
What you CANNOT do in Haryana
Things that are clearly prohibited
Play or offer online real-money poker. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 has banned online money gaming across India since 1 May 2026. Poker and rummy are included, and Haryana's notification is limited to physical rooms.
Run a club without DM registration. An unregistered room doesn't qualify for the exemption and counts as a gambling house.
Let anyone under 18 play, or let anyone play without completing KYC.
Bet on games of chance, such as roulette, matka or casino-style banking games. The notification covers only poker and rummy.
Bet on sports or elections, or fix matches. The 2025 Act targets these directly, with jail terms of up to 7 years.
Grey areas to avoid until a lawyer signs off
Tournament fees that grow with the prize pool. A fee charged as a percentage of the buy-in looks like a share of the stakes. Keep the fee flat and separate.
The club holding player money. A cage, a wallet or a chip-credit account puts the club close to the stakes. After the Supreme Court's May 2026 GST ruling, that's also a tax risk.
Rake, rakeback or charges tied to pot size. No official source we have located settles whether these are allowed in Haryana. Get legal advice and written confirmation from the authorities before charging them.
Marketing outside Haryana. Poker rooms remain illegal in several states. Advertising to players in places where the same table is an offence adds risk.
Tax: GST and TDS after the Supreme Court's May 2026 ruling
Being legal doesn't mean the tax position is settled.
GST. On 27 May 2026, a Supreme Court bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan held that, for GST, it does not matter whether an online game involves skill or chance. What matters is whether money is staked on an uncertain outcome. The court upheld the framework applying 28% GST to the full value of stakes, including retrospectively. This was a national ruling about organised online gaming platforms that held prize pools and ran player wallets; it was not a Haryana-specific poker decision.
For a Haryana club that never touches the stakes:
Settled: the club's own fees, including membership, seat time and F&B, are taxed as ordinary supplies.
Unsettled: whether any GST attaches to the stakes players exchange among themselves. Nobody has tested this yet, so no operator should assume the answer.
Income tax and TDS on winnings. Winnings from card games have long been taxed at a flat 30%. The party paying out winnings above the threshold deducts TDS. The new Income-tax Act, 2025 took effect in April 2026, so check the current section numbers and thresholds with a chartered accountant.
Skill and gambling now mean different things in different laws. Under Haryana's criminal law, skill is what makes poker lawful. Under GST, skill is irrelevant. Both positions stand because they answer different questions.
How Haryana compares with other states
Haryana is now one of the few north Indian states with a clear legal route for physical card rooms, and it attaches more conditions than the older permissive states. Status as reported by StartupTalky in September 2026:
State
Live poker / card rooms
Haryana
Allowed in registered clubs under the 2026 conditions
Goa, Sikkim
Licensed; card rooms operate openly
West Bengal, Nagaland
Card rooms operate openly
Karnataka
In between; Bengaluru police have shut many card rooms
Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat
Real-money card play prohibited, skill or not
All states (online)
Online money gaming banned nationally since 1 May 2026
Gurugram sits right next to Delhi and close to Rajasthan, so a short drive changes the law. A Haryana club's protection stops at the state border.
Frequently asked questions
Is poker legal in Haryana in 2026?
Yes. Live poker is legal in Haryana since the state notified it as a game of skill on 10 September 2026, but only in clubs that meet every condition in the Home Department guidelines.
Is online poker legal in Haryana?
No. Online real-money poker is banned across India under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, in force since 1 May 2026. A state notification can't override a central law.
Is there a poker club in Gurugram that is legal?
A Gurugram poker club is legal only if it is registered with the District Magistrate, admits KYC-verified members aged 18 or over, runs CCTV, accepts police visits and complies with GST and income tax. Ask to see the club's registration before you play.
Did the High Court legalise poker in Haryana?
Not by itself. In March 2026 the Punjab & Haryana High Court asked the state to decide and barred coercive action without due process. On 17 August 2026 it directed that specified petitioners be permitted to run physical/offline poker and rummy, subject to KYC, traceability, CCTV and authority-access conditions. The State's general notification of poker and rummy as games of skill came on 10 September 2026.
Can a poker club charge rake in Haryana?
No official source settles this. PokerHub India has not located any notification, guideline or court order that either permits or expressly bars rake for live poker clubs in Haryana. Reports that the guidelines ban rake have not been confirmed against an original government document. Operators should take legal advice and get written confirmation from the authorities before charging any rake or commission.
Is rummy legal in Haryana?
Yes, on the same terms as poker. The 10 September 2026 notification covers both poker and rummy.
What is the punishment for running an illegal gambling house in Haryana?
Taxscan’s summary reports three to five years in jail and a fine of up to ₹1 lakh for a first offence, with higher penalties for repeat offences. Confirm the current bare Act with a lawyer before relying on these figures.
Can I be arrested for playing in an illegal poker room?
Yes. Playing in a gambling house can bring up to one year in jail or a ₹10,000 fine for a first offence, and one to three years for a repeat offence.
Do I pay tax on poker winnings in Haryana?
Yes. Winnings have been taxed at a flat 30%, and TDS may be deducted on payouts above the threshold. Confirm current rules under the Income-tax Act, 2025 with a CA.
Is a home poker game with friends legal in Haryana?
The notification doesn't expressly cover home games. A purely social game among friends, with nobody charging a fee, is far from what the Act targets, but there is no official ruling on it.
Disclaimer
This article explains the law as reported up to 6 October 2026. It is not legal or tax advice. The Home Department guideline details come from press reports, not the original text. The notification is an executive order that the state can amend or withdraw. Speak to a gaming lawyer and a chartered accountant before you open a club or make decisions based on this guide.
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